In French
by pseudonymical
Summary: Grell teaches William some french.  Oh, the bad writing.


AN: Oop, still couldn't keep it under a thousand words. I swear I'll write some better Grelliam to make up for this monstrosity.  
>I tried, I'm sorry. Read and review!<br>EDIT: LIFE. MADE. LumBabsFan, a wonderful writer(yeah, went through and stalked her and read all her stories) apparently runs a voice-acting group-and THEY DID THIS. They added some bits to make it suck less, and it worked, it's really quite fantastic. I love it so much. Here's a link, if you'd like to hear. FF's being a bitch, so delete the spaces(sorry.). http:/ /www. 4shared .com/audio /p1rUBZmQ /IN_FRENCH. html  
>There's 6 spaces, if that helps. Between the first two slashes, in front of and in back of "4shared" in front of the slashes before and behind the "p1rUBZmQ" and in front of the ".html".<br>(SORRY. I KNOW THAT'S A LOT OF PAIN TO GO THROUGH TO LINK YOU TO SOMETHING ON THIS PEICE OF CRAP, BUT THEY REALLY DID IT WELL.)

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><p>"Oh, Will, it's not that hard. There are only six verb conjugations of each verb in present tense. You're good at rote memorization, you should be able to get that." Grell waved airily, as though William wasn't hurting his pride by asking for help.<p>

"Are you going to help me?"

"Take time out of my packed schedule? I'm not sure if I can!" _Damn him, he's dragging this out on purpose_. William restrained his temper by a narrow margin. Grell didn't _have_ anything in his "packed schedule", he could surely take time to help his classmate study French. He shot Grell a look with as much menace in it as he could manage. Grell might act like he ruled the world, but William was well aware that he himself could be quite commanding when he worked at it. Grell was being ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous, and they both knew it. That being said, "ridiculous" was pretty much the norm for the flamboyant redhead.

"Sutcliff, I am merely asking for perhaps a half an hour of your time." Usually, if Will wanted a favor from a classmate-which wasn't very often, as he could take care of himself perfectly well-he would use an honorary, such as "Mr. Sutcliff". However, Grell would only respond to a "Miss", and William refused to call him that, so "Sutcliff" alone would have to do.

"Oh, fine, Will. Don't glare at me like that. French is _easy_, anyway." _For you_. As good as William knew he was at rote memorization, there was something about languages that just threw him. All the grammar, irregularity, and conjugations were an issue for him-he liked things to be systematic, like math. French in particular was not his strong suit.

"When would you like to meet?"

"Ah, I'm free tonight. And you?"

"I was going to suggest tonight. The test is tomorrow." Grell nodded and strode off towards a group of people. William heard calls of "ah, man, who invited red?", but knew they were joking. Grell always seemed to have a friend around him, despite his many oddities. In fact, that seemed to be a staple of his presence-amusement value. Oh, there were those that disagreed, but for the most part, people enjoyed Grell's company.

William had never had terribly many friends. He didn't need them. Actually, if you counted Grell...No, Grell was probably the only one. It didn't matter, though. William had other things to fill his time than relationships that wouldn't last. He had to study. If he had spare time, books were excellent company. He walked into his next class-thankfully not a language. After some aimless milling around of the students, the teacher stepped up and began the lesson.

"Death scythes are a Reaper's single greatest tool..." William tuned out. He knew about death scythes, they all did. This lesson was merely a repeat, and William saw no reason to be here if they were just going to be catering to the less-bright students who needed more than one telling to understand something. He wouldn't have skipped-risk a black mark on his record? Never. But he might have brought a book or something, had he known he was going to be bored to death.

He began conjugating verbs in his head. _Je vais, tu vas, il va, elle va_...

"Why do you even take all these languages if you hate them so much?" Grell asked, sighing. They sat in the deserted library-apparently no one was as dedicated to passing their tests as William. Then, too, it was late. William had waited for Grell in the library for three hours before he'd finally showed up, meaning that the sky outside the windows was black and the librarian, who was out of sight anyway, walked over every five minutes or so to glare at them, her eyes suggesting that they find somewhere else to study because she wanted to go home.

"Because I think it is necessary, as we may travel in our careers, to know the basics of as many languages as possible."

"You took German last year?" Grell asked, circling in red an answer on William's paper.

"Yes."

"Did you like _that_?"

"No." Grell rolled his eyes at William's monosyllabic answers and pushed the paper back over towards him.

"All right. There's four forms of _quel_, and you're not using the feminine plural. You're just using the masculine. You can't seem to remember your genders either, and you're avoiding conjugating verbs by putting "_aimer_" in front of them." He paused. "Basically, you really suck at this."

"What an excellent teacher you are."

"He makes a joke!" Grell said melodramatically. "In all reality, though, Will, I'm wonderful and you know it. Now, all I can say for this is study. Remember the genders and use the right forms of things. You're good at boring crap like memorizing, use it. What about speaking?"

"Er..." William replied. He wasn't good at speaking. At all.

"Try saying this." Grell scribbled on a piece of paper. "We'll move on to making stuff up in a minute."

"Uh," William paused to decipher the curly writing, "'_Tu es très belle_..." He flushed as he realized what he was saying. Grell made a face.

"I love the sentiment," _As though you weren't the one who wrote it_. "but my god, Will, your pronunciation is atrocious. Try repeating after me- _'Tu es très belle_'." The words seemed to roll off the redhead's tongue easily, far better than it had from William's, who had never thought his accent was too bad before he'd heard Grell's.

"I am _not_ repeating that." He said stiffly. Anything to postpone embarrassing himself with his own voice-well, and he really didn't want to say it again. It wasn't right, that Grell was taking advantage of this.

"Oh, fine, but someday you should have that stick removed from your a-"

"Sutcliff!"

"I call 'em like I see 'em." Grell shrugged. "Here, just... tell me your name."

"You know my name."

"Do I now?" The redhead said, widening his eyes to give himself a shocked look, which he then abruptly changed to one of exasperation. "Of course I know your name, you berk. I'm working on your accent."

"Oh." William felt his cheeks redden again. _How stupid. Of course_. "_Je m'appelle William T. Spears_." He felt as though he could hear all the mistakes, and from Grell's expression, there were just as many as he feared.

"'William' would have been just fine, Will. As you so wisely said, I know your name. But whatever. 'M'appelle' is in one go, so don't pause after the first two letters. For someone so handsome, you're not very smart." Grell sighed. _Do you have to slip those comments into everything? It's embarrassing when you tell me I'm handsome._.. _Hey, wait! _

"How dare you imply that I am stupid-"

"Do I have to remove that stick myself?" Grell asked pointedly, cutting him off and making a rude hand gesture. He leered. "It would be my pleasure, but..." _Oh god, I'm alone with Grell Sutcliff, and I didn't bring a rape whistle_.

They worked-well, the 'work' done was questionable, as Grell seemed unable to stay on task-for an hour, or maybe two. The librarian began to glare more frequently, and Grell's comments became more an more obviously sexual. William supposed that was normal for his classmate, but it was quite disconcerting. Finally, he put down his pencil and handed the paper over for Grell to look at. The yellow-green eyes scanned the paper quickly, the red pen scratching across it far more than William would have liked.

"Well," The paper landed in front of him, drawing him out of a stupor of watching Grell's firey hair move. "you've gotten better." William read Grell's comments on his work, picking out the ruby ink easily amid the graphite.

"Thank you." He called absently, still reading.

"_Jesus, Will, get your accents right."_

_ "Will, you moron, how many times have I told you that there's an s in this?" _

_ "That's feminine, not masculine."_

William sighed. He _was_ getting better. Only a few comments, although Grell would have taken less time with it if he hadn't stopped to insult him every few lines. He could have just circled things. He read on.

_ "You prick, you've gotten your participles wrong again."_

_ "I'm not even sure this bit is French."_

_ "You didn't even put an accent IN here_."

Why did Grell feel the need to verbally abuse him? Well, at least he'd probably pass that test tomorrow. As his eyes flicked to the next red comment, Grell started.

"I'm going home, it's an ungodly hour to be in a library." He said quickly, standing up and gathering his things. It was almost as if he wanted to be gone before William finished reading.

_ "You bloody fool, that's got two e's."_

Two more. Loopy handwriting in red, unattached to anything, nothing circled nearby, the comment stood alone at the bottom of the paper.

"_Je t'aime, Will_." The comment read. William frowned, translating it in his head. He made a choked sound when he reached the answer. His mind raced. _Joke, joke, joke? Is it a joke? Please let it be a joke_.

"Sutcliff!"

"Yes?" Grell said sweetly, turning from the door.

"What is the meaning of this?"

"Exactly what it says. Read on. Good night, Will." He left.

"_You think I'm joking, but I'm not_." The last line read.

William smiled.


End file.
